Research Underway To Find Biomarkers To Identify Tb

A research project is underway in Singapore that will hopefully lead researchers to find a way of easily identifying one of the world's worst diseases tuberculosis (TB). A bacterial infection, TB mainly affects the lungs, although it can spread to affect other parts of the body including people's bones and their nervous systems. The main symptoms include a cough that will not go away, weight loss and sweating at night. If it goes untreated, active TB can kill.

In the UK, tuberculosis was a major problem before antibiotics were introduced. Official figures show that just over 9,000 cases of the disease were reported in 2009 in the UK, but globally that figure is much higher, with 9.4 million new cases of TB reported during the same year. Across the world, an estimated 1.7 million people died from the condition.

Experts from the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Singapore Lipidomics Incubator are working alongside researchers from the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics in a bid to find a simple and affordable way to allow health workers in developing countries to identify people with tuberculosis in a short amount of time.

According to a report by News Medical, this is not the first time that medical experts have turned their attention to efforts to find such a test for tuberculosis (TB). However, previous attempts to find a biomarker specific to the identification of TB have not been successful.

Assoc Prof Markus Wenk from the NUS Department of Biochemistry and Department of Biological Sciences said that the research team has now identified mycolic acids as a marker for TB infection and now further work will be done to develop antibodies specific to this biomarker for detection by immunoassay. As with many other projects involving biomarkers around the world, more research needs to be done to discover just how useful they can really be in helping to identify diseases and guide treatment.

However, there is no doubt that biomarker research is having a profound impact on research being undertaken in laboratories all around the world. Many believe that biomarkers will become a major driving force in the fields of pharmaceutical research and drug development in the future, and their potential is already there for all to see. Research and development can be an extremely long process, as well as an extremely expensive one. It is for this reason that companies need to have up to date information available with regard to biomarker databases and related drug information.

About the Author:
Biomarker analysis is taking place across the world and biological markers are set to continue to play a major role in medical research.

Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com

Tags: Biomarker analysis

, biological markers

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